These are rules for the Hack Hospitality Hackathon. Participation in the event constitutes the acceptance of these rules. If you have a question about them, please submit an issue here.

The spirit of the competition

Remember that hackathons are like marathons. Some people go to compete but most people take part to better themselves and have fun. Whatever the reason is you’re at a hackathon, make sure you’re upholding the Code of Conduct. This is a competition but we strongly encourage collaborating with other teams, helping beginners, and having fun.

The rules of the competition

There is no maximum or minimum team size.

All team members should be present at the event. Leaving the venue for some time to hack elsewhere is fine.

Teams can, of course, gain advice and support from organizers, volunteers, sponsors, and others.

All work on a project should be done at the hackathon.

Teams can use an idea they had before the event.

Teams can work on ideas that have already been done. Hacks do not have to be “innovative”. If somebody wants to work on a common idea they should be allowed to do so and should be judged on the quality of their hack. These days it’s hard to find something that’s fully original and teams might not know an idea has been done before anyway.

Teams can work on an idea that they have worked on before (as long as they do not reuse code).

Teams can use libraries, frameworks, or open-source code in their projects. Working on a project before the event and open-sourcing it for the sole purpose of using the code during the event is against the spirit of the rules and is not allowed.

Adding new features to existing projects is allowed. Judges will only consider new functionality introduced or new features added during the hackathon in determining the winners.

Teams must stop hacking once the time is up. However, teams are allowed to debug and make small fixes to their programs after time is up. e.g. If during demoing your hack you find a bug that breaks your application and the fix is only a few lines of code, it’s okay to fix that. Making large changes or adding new features is not allowed.

All projects remain the intellectual property of individuals or teams that created them.

By participating in the hackathon, you represent and warrant that you are the sole author and copyright owner of the project, and that the project is an original work of the team, or if the project is a work based on an existing code, that you have acquired sufficient rights to use and to authorize others; and that the project does not infringe upon any copyright or upon any other third party rights of which you are aware, and that the project is free of malware.

Teams can be disqualified from the competition at the organizers’ discretion. Reasons might include but are not limited to breaking the Competition Rules, breaking the Code of Conduct, or other unsporting behavior.